First Nations leaders and Saskatchewan's Advocate for Children and Youth signed a letter of understanding Tuesday, as a first step in dealing with the high number of aboriginal children in foster homes.

Both sides say about 80 per cent of children in foster care in the province are First Nations.

"We also need to know what is failing our children, in order to address the shortcomings of the current system," said Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN) Vice-Chief Dutch Lerat.

Children's Advocate Bob Pringle said there must be a better way to serve First Nations children and their families that suffer from daily struggles.

Part of the agreement involves keeping families together, as well as allowing relatives such as grandparents to have more contact with foster children.

"To ensure the child has access to celebrations, pow-wows, part of his culture," said Pringle. "[To] be familiar with their own spirituality and their own culture and their own language. It's a process of making sure that our efforts are coordinated."

There was no mention at the signing of how officials will deal with the issue of on-reserve foster care.

The main goal of the letter of understanding is to keep aboriginal children out of the child welfare system, but it has not yet been outlined what kind of changes that will require.